Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has made it clear he sees the purpose of the training as “to learn how to beat Russia,” and the escalation of the training toward combat troops is likely to add some tensions to US-Russian relations, with Poroshenko openly envisioning his country as the staging ground for a global war on Russia.

Russian officials are downplaying the seriousness of the program so far, however, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov citing the disastrous state of the US-trained armies in Iraq and Afghanistan as proof the US training won’t be a real game-changer.

The US plan now is to train five battalions of Ukrainian troops, along with a battalion of special forces. The training is centered on Western Ukraine to avoid any risk of direct US involvement in the civil war in the east, which is in a state of ceasefire at any rate.

Author: Jason Ditz

Is Poro also a comedian or does he actually believe the nonsense he spouts?

The Artist

This is totally unfair, the Ukrainian army being trained by the best army in the history of the world. That means that they will gain an unfair advantage over the Russians. With the skills that the Ukrainians learn from the Americans, the Ukrainian army will be practically unbeatable. I think that the best the Russians can do now is offer Ukraine a bribe in a form of a free gas maybe, so the Ukrainian army refrains from totally annihilating the Russians on the battlefield. I think the slogan of the deal should be: "Pass the gas and you'll be safe from us".

Jessica

“with Poroshenko openly envisioning his country as the staging ground for a global war on Russia.”

Because who wouldn’t want to be the spark that lights the powder cake of nuclear annihilation?

Jessica

Powder keg, I meant. I must be dreaming of cake.

El Tonno

The Cake is a Lie

curmudgeonvt

"…US-trained armies in Iraq and Afghanistan as proof the US training won’t be a real game-changer."

Gotta have a sense of humor. Too bad for the Pentagon but the truth is hard to deny.

Michael Kenny

Lavrov's comparison with Iraq and Afghanistan was probably intended as a deliberate racist insult, a typically populist gesture, but the amusing part is that the Ukrainian army, like the Russian army, is a successor to the Soviet army. If the Ukrainians are such bad soldiers, then, logically, the Russians must be just as bad! Essentially, Lavrov's reaction tells us that Russia is in fact scared silly of having to use its regular army to fight off a Ukrainian attempt to take back its territory. Inevitably, since Putin is now bogged down in Syria, he's weak in Ukraine and the Ukrainians are inevitably going to take advantage of that. The sneering reaction in earlier comments suggests that Lavrov isn't the only one that this scares.

Alabama Mothaman

No Prob-lem-o. Look how well they've done with ISIS training. All they can do is attack unarmed civilians.